During the off-season the Young District Cricket Association President had meetings with Lachlan Cricket Council to determine the season ahead.

When the Western Zone Premier League competition was ruled not to proceed this season, along with the Lachlan Intertown Representative competition also not proceeding leaving the rep side with only Grinsted Cup and McDonalds Plate to challenge for, the committee had a meeting with the rep side to see how they would like to proceed. They decided to head into the Riverina competition and contest for Stribley Shield and O'Farrell Cup giving them up to 15 games of rep cricket for the season.

The side contested their first round of McDonalds Plate in Forbes last Sunday with a convincing win over Forbes to progress to the next round of the knockout competition. The next round will be held in Young against Wellington on Sunday, of November 6.

The side will remain largely unchanged with some additions of specialty batsmen to face Temora this Sunday in Round 1 of Stribley Shield to be held at Gus Smith Oval from 10am Sunday, October 30.

Captain of the side, Sam Langford, is not available for the match as he has been named in the Lachlan competition rep side. We wish him all the very best in the side as they are the best cricketers in the Lachlan region and after winning Lachlan Player of the Year last season Sam is well placed in this side. Vice Captain Jason Hall will take the reins this Sunday.

We are embracing the growth in the rep side and attribute it to the coming together of the three towns in the South West Slopes competition, ensuring players have quality competition each week with official umpires while maintaining a focus on bringing juniors through the ranks.

Blooms Chemist will offer an award at the end of the season to the most successful under 25s player. This gives the young players something to stick around for and encourages them to work on their game and strengthening our local competition. We have it here and the proof is in the pudding with players returning from the Wagga competition to play here.

All teams have been professionally decked out in shirts supplied by Rorz Cricket and they look fantastic with a great opportunity to showcase the competition sponsors and the individual team sponsors without whom we couldn’t get on the park each week.

We have back on board Delta Agribusiness, Dunk Insurance as our Division 1 and 2 sponsors and South West Fuels as our Umpire Sponsor. We also welcome Blooms Chemist on board as the League sponsors signing on for two years.

We would also like to thank Kookaburra for supplying our representative shirts and Darren and the team at the Empire Hotel for sponsoring the rep side.

We look forward to Round 4 of the SWSCL this weekend with Young S&C Young Ones playing last season’s runners-up, the Crusaders, in Cootamundra and the Coyotes playing last season’s winners, the Mimosa Whirlwinds, at Gus Smith.

In Division 2 the Aussie Hotel Scorchers take on Albion Hotel in Cootamundra and the Criterion Gunners take on Young Hotel Saints in Young.